xi, 432 pages ; 22 cm

Originally published: New York : Viking, 2005

Includes bibliographical references and index

pt. 1. In search of traditional marriage. -- The radical idea of marrying for love -- The many meanings of marriage -- The invention of marriage -- pt. 2. The era of political marriage. -- Soap operas of the ancient world -- Something borrowed : the marital legacy of the classical world and early Christianity -- Playing the bishop, capturing the queen : aristocratic marriages in early medieval Europe -- How the other 95 percent wed : marriage among the common folk of the middle ages -- Something old, something new : Western European marriage at the dawn of the modern age -- pt. 3. The love revolution. -- From yoke mates to soul mates : emergence of the love match and the male provider marriage -- "Two birds within one nest" : sentimental marriage in nineteenth-century Europe and North America -- "A heaving volcano" : beneath the surface of Victorian marriage -- "The time when mountains move has come" : from sentimental to sexual marriage -- Making do, then making babies : marriage in the Great Depression and World War II -- The era of Ozzie and Harriet : the long decade of "traditional" marriage -- pt. 4. Courting disaster? : the collapse of universal and lifelong marriage. -- Winds of change : marriage in the 1960s and 1970s -- The perfect storm : the transformation of marriage at the end of the twentieth century -- Uncharted territory : how the transformation of marriage is changing our lives -- Conclusion : Better or worse? the future of marriage

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